I've got a friend that bought a phone off of eBay for $1000. It was from Italy and it was exactly as this phone is described. I was very skeptical about the phone until he got it in the mail. He took the phone out of the box, put his T-mobile sims card in the phone and it activated. He's since updated to all the different firmwares with no problems at all. He's currently running 2.1 with a T-mobile sim card on a white 16gb iPhone.

I've got a friend that bought a phone off of eBay for $1000. It was from Italy and it was exactly as this phone is described. I was very skeptical about the phone until he got it in the mail. He took the phone out of the box, put his T-mobile sims card in the phone and it activated. He's since updated to all the different firmwares with no problems at all. He's currently running 2.1 with a T-mobile sim card on a white 16gb iPhone.

IF and only IF that is the case, we have been missing an important hardware unlock.

The phone is directly from Apple in Italy. I've got a white 16gb 3G on AT&T and the phones look exactly the same. The box had little minor differences. Believe me I called him an idiot for buying anything on eBay for $1000 especially a phone that seems to be unlockable. But it truelly and honestly works. I jailbroke the phone myself since I have a mac and he is too impatient to wait on anything. Which is why he paid $1000 for a phone on eBay instead of waiting on dev team to finish their miracles.